


Same suit different tie

by billie758657



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Coach Negan, Drabble, Introspection, Negan Being Negan (Walking Dead), Negans name is joe, Pre-Canon, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 15:29:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10619805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billie758657/pseuds/billie758657
Summary: Part of grab-my-boner's 1k writing challenge.  Based on same suit different tie by the maine.A drabble about Negan recreating his own image to become the leader we love to hate. ( and hate to love! )





	

“Hi. I'm Negan.”

The first time he had said it he could feel Simon giving him a side eye. He got why. He was just Joey. Joseph. Good old fucking reliable Joe. But something had changed. Looking on at the pathetic trio of strays who were asking to stay with them, in a place the two of them had spent months clearing out and making their own, he knew something had to change.  He had to change. 

He knew people. It was impossible to live in the new world and not know them. They were pretty fucking stupid and pretty fucking greedy. People were dangerous. People fucked up and got themselves killed for no good reason. More often than not they got other people killed too. He also knew that people were useful. He also knew that it was pretty fucking hard to get by without them.  

He could already see all the different ways it might play out. He was pretty fucking smart even before the world went to shit and now he had a wealth of experience in being a victim and being shit on from a great height to back him up. He was damned if he was going to let anyone take him back to that. These people could do it if he let them, they could be anyone. Their pleas and snivelling whimpers now wouldn't stop them from taking everything they could away from him the second he let his guard down. There were no depths people had yet to sink to. The world order had turned to shit. He wasn't about to make the mistake of underestimating them – but he could use them.

He had been Negan his entire life. It was his father’s name before that. At the top of every bill, every doctor's letter, called out in the corridors by the high school kids who needed his infinite wisdom, scratched into his mail box, the name was scored into his mind as aching reminder of what used to be. After the old world ended he had thought it didn’t mean anything anymore. It was just a name. Nobody in their right fucking mind cared about a name. But maybe it could mean something else in this new world. Something more.

The more he thought about it the more it made sense. It wasn't an idea that came all at  once but trickled down into his mind when all he could see was what was broken in the world. An idea built on necessity. Survival. The world needed rules. It needed order. There needed to be consequences and rewards. Some god damn structure for fuck’s sake. He was sick of trying to find it. Every group he had been in thus far had failed or been ruined by some sorry shit who thought they knew better. Instead of waiting around for a life to land in his lap, good old Joe realised that he ought to create one.  

He could do it. He could create an image that would keep him safe. Create a system that kept other people safe, making sure he and Simon were always at the top of the pecking order of course. He could make sure that no one would dare try to take it from him. He would make the rules and he would make sure that they were followed to the letter. It would be for their own good. He would build a new civilisation from the ruins of the old one. One that would stand against the new world order and punch it right in the balls.

But who would follow old Joey? Old Joey had a wife he didn't deserve, only coached little league on a Sunday because of the eye candy leering over him, fucked a different body or two every month, fucked up his tax returns and banged his head against a fucking wall five god damn days a week trying to make shitty teenagers run in a fucking circle. Hardly leadership material. 

But standing in front of those people changed something. When he took the coaching job, the principle had told him that first impressions counted for a lot. That if ever there was a time to reinvent himself then that was when to do it. The memory rang out as clear as a bell. He could reinvent himself and be the man he needed to be to get shit done, to build something, to bring back civilisation itself. If they didn't want it?  He supposed that was tough shit.  Better alive and miserable than dead-  or worse.  He wouldn't leave anyone with a choice. Give them no room to fuck up and die. Someone had to make the rules so why not him? 

He had always been Negan. Only this time he was going to wear it a little differently. 

 


End file.
